About one-quarter of a mile away from majestic Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, New York, there is a piece of land that once housed a small community. That community was built on and around a 16-acre, rectangular, underground landfill. That landfill was filled with nearly 30 years of chemical waste. Not surprisingly, the image of disaster that this scenario conjures up occurred in that small community; it is known as the Love Canal Tragedy. It was one of the first environmental disasters of this nature to happen in the United States, and it was the very first in which the federal government was forced to intervene on the behalf of the residents.
The toxic landfill began its life as the start of an ambitious project dreamed up by William T. Love. He had imagined a magnificent city in the area that he had hoped to power using hydroelectric dams. The plan called for a canal to be built between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers. Unfortunately for Love, the plan went under in 1910. A changing economy and new solutions for producing electricity contributed to the scrapping of Love’s plans. Construction had already begun on the site, and by the time it stopped there was a roughly 3,280-foot ditch where the canal had been started. It was left the way it was.
Ten years later, the property was purchased by the city of Niagara Falls and used as a chemical dump site. After more than 20 years, the site was sold to the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation, which in turn used it for its chemical waste. By the time the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation closed the site, in 1953, there was roughly 22,000 tons of waste in what was meant to be Love’s canal. The landfill was lined with clay and covered in soil before being sold to the city for $1. Along with the land came a disclaimer, freeing the corporation from any responsibility for damages that may be caused by the use of the site. It is unclear whether the company was aware of the danger, but it protected itself from the potential.
Just a few years later, roughly 100 houses were built in the area of Love Canal. A school was added and families began living and raising their children there. It wasn’t long before the smell of chemicals was noticed in some residents’ basements. Some tests were done, but nothing was done to remove the chemicals or the residents for some time. It was until a heavy rain season and a large blizzard in 1976 that people began to realize that the chemicals they were smelling were beneath their community in massive and extremely harmful quantities.
The waste disposal drums beneath the community had begun corroding, and their contents were leaking into the soil. The drums themselves even began working their way up, and they could be seen poking through in people’s yards. Even worse were puddles of chemical waste throughout much of the community and even at the school. Plant-life turned black and died and children were getting chemical burns on their skin from playing outside. Nothing was done about the Love Canal Tragedy until 1978.
Several studies and tests were done in the area. The studies showed an abnormally high rate of miscarriages and there were children being born with birth defects. Blood tests revealed high white blood cell counts in many residents. Tests on the chemicals revealed that dozens of chemicals had been dumped in the “Love Canal” and that several of them were known carcinogens, at least one of which was a human carcinogen.
In 1978 efforts were made to remove residents, starting with those with the highest risk of adverse effects. Pregnant women and families with small children were removed from the most toxic areas first, and so on. The local government offered to buy many of these families’ homes to alleviate at least part of their burden. On August 7, the federal government approved federal financial aid for the area. Subsequently, the area was evacuated and a slow cleanup process that cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars ensued. The Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation eventually picked up $130 million of the tab.
